The smell of coffee and bacon did little to chase away the chill that had settled deep in Quinn's bones. He sat at the kitchen table, a mug warming his hands, and watched the morning light stream through the window. It looked like any other Saturday. Peaceful. Normal. He had spent most of the night on the couch, half-dozing, one ear listening for any sound from outside. The words from the news ticker had replayed in his mind. Facility remains secure. It was a lie. The burner phone in his pocket had remained silent. No update. No stand-down order. Which meant the situation was active.
His backpack sat by the front door where he had left it. It was a silent, heavy reminder of his purpose. The manila envelope inside felt like a lead weight. Leave Papers. The order felt like a lifetime ago. His new orders, the ones he had given himself, were to protect the people in this house.
Sarah bustled around the kitchen, her movements efficient and practiced. She flipped pancakes while glancing at the small television mounted in the corner. The local morning news was on, its cheerful theme music a sharp contrast to the sirens he could now hear faintly in the distance.
"Looks like there was some trouble over at Blackwood last night," she said, her tone casual, the way one might mention an overnight traffic accident.
Quinn's grip on his mug tightened, but he kept his expression neutral. "Oh yeah?" He had been waiting for this. The first public report.
On the screen, a reporter stood in front of the imposing gates of the Blackwood Institute. The shot was framed to look calm, but in the background, Quinn could see the flashing lights of several official-looking vehicles. More than should be there for a simple protest.
"Officials are calling the incident a minor chemical spill," the reporter said, her voice professionally placid. "The Blackwood Institute has released a statement assuring the public that the situation was contained immediately and there is no danger to the surrounding communities. Precautionary road closures in the immediate vicinity have now been lifted."
Chemical spill. The cover story was in place. He watched the reporter's calm delivery and knew it was the beginning of the end. He forced himself to take a slow sip of coffee. He had to stay calm. For them.
Sarah frowned. "My friend Jenna works in that office park right next door. I should give her a call, make sure she's okay."
She pulled her phone from the pocket of her jeans and dialed a number. She pressed the phone to her ear as she used a spatula to flip a pancake onto a plate. Her smile faded after a moment. She pulled the phone away from her face, looked at the screen, and then tried again.
"That's weird," she said to herself. She tapped the screen with her thumb. "It's not ringing. It's just… noise."
A cold feeling moved up Quinn's spine. Cell service was the first thing to go in a crisis zone, either by overload or by design. "It's probably the cell towers," he said, his voice even and reasonable. "Everyone in a ten-mile radius is likely calling someone to talk about the spill. The network is just overloaded."
Sarah nodded, accepting the explanation. She placed her phone on the counter, but the line of worry in her brow remained. "I guess. It's just static. It's loud. I've never heard a sound like that from a phone before."
Quinn slid his own burner phone from his pocket, keeping it low and angled away from her view. No Service. He slipped it back and pulled out his personal smartphone. The signal indicator at the top of the screen flickered between one bar and three. Unstable. He swiped down to open the notification center.
There were two alerts. They were not from any application he had installed. They were system-level notifications, stark and without branding.
CIVIL AUTHORITY ALERT: SHELTER IN PLACE ADVISORY FOR BLACKWOOD PERIMETER. VALID UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
He dismissed the notification with a flick of his thumb. A second one was visible underneath it. This one was partially corrupted, the text broken.
N.E.S. ACTIVE: PROTOCOL 7. BROADCAST… [DATA CORRUPT]… AVOID POPULATED AREAS.
Quinn's blood felt cold. His thumb moved on instinct, deleting the alert before he had fully registered the action. Protocol 7. The contingency plan for a total loss-of-containment scenario. His source had been right. The projections he had seen months ago, the ones that were dismissed as worst-case fantasies, were happening. And they were happening faster than anyone had predicted.
"I'm going to run out and grab some more milk and orange juice," Mark announced. He walked into the kitchen and took his car keys from a hook by the door. "And maybe some donuts. Who wants donuts?"
"Me!" Lily shouted from the living room. Her attention was fixed on a cartoon about a talking dog. Tom, sitting next to her, gave a noncommittal grunt that served as his vote for donuts.
"Hear that?" Mark said, gesturing toward the window. The sound of sirens was more distinct now. It was not one siren, but many, a constant rise and fall that layered over the normal sounds of the morning. "Sounds like the whole city is on the move. Traffic's probably going to be a mess."
He kissed Sarah on the cheek and walked out the front door.
For the next twenty minutes, the house existed in a fragile state of normalcy. The bright, cheerful music from the cartoons filled the living room. Lily laughed whenever the cartoon dog fell down. Sarah finished making breakfast, stacking pancakes on a large platter. They were a family having breakfast on a Saturday. Quinn sat in the center of it, a silent observer. He felt like a man watching a recording of a life that was already over. He looked at Sarah. Her eyes held a low-level worry, the kind any person would feel with sirens in the background and strange news on television. He constructed a calm expression on his own face. It was a mask to hide a fear so deep it felt like a physical pressure in his chest.
The front door opened and slammed shut. It had been less than thirty minutes since Mark had left. He walked into the kitchen, his face pale. He dropped his keys on the counter. The sound was loud in the quiet room. He had no bags of groceries with him.
"Did you forget something?" Sarah asked.
Mark shook his head. He ran a hand through his hair. The hand was not steady. "No. I… I'm not going back out there."
"What is it? Mark, what's wrong?" Sarah's voice grew sharp with alarm.
"The roads are a disaster," Mark said. His voice was low and strained. "It's not just traffic. It's wrong. I saw three near-accidents in five minutes. A guy in a pickup truck blew through a red light right in front of me. He didn't even slow down. A few blocks later, a woman just stopped her car in the middle of an intersection, got out, and started screaming at the sky."
He leaned against the counter for support. His breathing was heavy. "People are driving on the wrong side of the road. They're trying to get away from the direction of Blackwood. They're just… abandoning their cars if they get stuck in traffic. It's chaos, Sarah."
Quinn stood up from the table. "What else did you see?"
Mark looked at him. His eyes were wide. "The people. On the sidewalks. They look… frantic. Panicked. It's like something just snapped inside their heads."
As he spoke, the picture on the kitchen television flickered. The image distorted into horizontal lines of static. The audio buzzed loudly, then the picture returned. The local morning reporter was gone. The screen now showed a national news anchor in a large studio. The man looked stressed. His tie was crooked, and a bead of sweat was visible on his temple.
"We are interrupting all programs with this breaking news," the anchor said. His voice was tight. He was trying to maintain his professional composure, but it was failing. "The situation developing outside the Blackwood Institute, initially reported as a chemical spill, has been… it has been reclassified. We are now getting reports of escalating civil unrest in the surrounding sectors."
The anchor looked down at the papers on his desk, then back up at the camera. He listened to a voice in his earpiece. The remaining color left his face. His professional mask shattered completely.
"We are now getting… we are getting unconfirmed reports from emergency services on the ground…" He paused, his eyes wide with disbelief. He looked directly into the camera, but he seemed to be looking through it. "Oh my God… they're saying… The official directive is to lock your doors. Do not… I repeat, do not approach anyone exhibiting erratic behavior or… or physical…"
The screen dissolved into a blizzard of black and white static. The sound of the anchor's voice was replaced by a single, high-pitched, electronic tone. The tone filled the kitchen. It was the only sound in the sudden, absolute silence of the house.